1.1. intervention area

The Community initiative URBAN II is a programme covering the development and the application of particularly innovatory strategies which aims at durable socio-economic city and agglomeration regeneration in crisis. It also covers the reinforcement and the exchange of knowledge and of experiences in relation to durable urban regeneration within the Community.

The urban regions to which the Community initiative URBAN II addresses itself have to present certain problems inside a coherent geographical area, such as a high unemployment rate, a low economic activity ratio, a particularly deteriorated environment, the specific needs for restructuring, etc.

Under this programme, the City of Heraklion proposes as an intervention area the geographical area including Agia Triada's and Kaminia's districts, as well as approximately half of the Agio district mined (area adjacent to the ramparts and finishing to the Martinengo bastion).

The intervention area in question presents, in addition to the demographic requirement (20 000 inhabitants), one degree of considerable homogeneity from the point of view of the geographical, social and economic characteristics, which proves the need to select it.

Considering the city of Heraklion as a whole, according to his current development level, it is noted that, all around its urban centre, and in particular in the part located inside the ramparts, there are deteriorated cores from the point of view of the economic activity and from the housing conditions. These cores maintain however the traditional urban fabric in spite of the modern plans of alignment of the streets which were adopted .

One of the cores referred to above, which certainly is the most important one from the point of view of homogeneity and from the problems, one of the intervention areas is. This involves the area of Agia Triada , which covers the north-west part of the historical city intra muros. This area includes or is in contact with important monuments of the city, and is directly connected with its history and with its development.

It is surrounded by the Kalokairinou, Giamalaki, Paraliaki streets Leoforos (Venizelou) and Archiepiskopou Makariou. As a whole, Agia Triada's area constitutes one of the 25 districts of the ille v of Heraklion and, more particularly, one of the five districts which are inside the Venetian ramparts.

For the Ottoman period, Agia Triada's area had a rather loose structure. At the end of the XIX ^e century and at the beginning of the XX ^e century, factories and warehouses were built, where the principal agricultural products of the department (grapes, wine, oil) were processed and were stored. The area acquired a craft-based and industrial character thus clearly. Near the factories, houses were built, where those which, refugees for the majority, constituted the manpower of this first industrial core of Heraklion settled.

Environmental pollution of the area is particularly substantial on the coast, where of major industrial units concentrated, and where himself t enait so far the market to the vegetables of the Heraklion urban complex. At this place, the deterioration is due to the pollution of the historical and picturesque gulf of Dermatas, caused by sewers, to the presence of large abandoned buildings (public electricity company, buildings of craft enterprises , tobacco factory), as well as to the existence, until a recent time, of noisy and awkward activities (market to the vegetables, working sites).

The deteriorated part of the Agio district undermined present the same characteristics as that of Agia Triada, in a point such as it makes it possible to incorporate it, for operational purposes, into a single entity forming a homogeneous area. It is noted, moreover, that the deteriorated part of Agios mined has higher homogeneity with Agia Triada's district that with the remainder of the Agio district mined, which is not in prey to the same problems. Environmental pollution is strengthened by the concentration of immigrants who, profiting from the low rents, create concentrations gradually and set up family networks, which has as a consequence an intensification of social polarisation within the area.

The Kaminia area constitutes one of the most deteriorated urban entities of the Heraklion urban complex. With Agia Triada's and Agios's districts mined, Kaminia constitutes a pocket of homogeneous deterioration the economic regeneration of which is judged essential.

According to the general urban plan, the area is delimited in the north by the coast, in the east by the Venetian ramparts (Agios Andreas's and Pantokrator's bastions), in the south by the street 62 Martyron, and in the west by the Giofyros river. According to the descriptions of travellers (Praktakidis 1818, Kalomenopoulos 1894, etc.), the area has its current name to an old lime kiln (en grec, "" asvestokamino"") on the side of the Eleftherias street. During the interwar years, exchangeable grounds, intended for the Greek refugees' reinstalment in rural and urban areas, were distributed. Thus, non distributable grounds, located along the ditch, of the Pnevma Agio fortification and of the coast, were occupied by private individuals who built improvised dwellings. The stage of the sportsman Circle of Heraklion was builds in the area of the cemeteries, while of the workshops and warehouses were set up along the coast and in the street 62 Martyron. Lastly, after 1980, the pressing needs for housing, that the extension of the urban plan towards the west does not manage to satisfy, cause illegal constructions.

The need to regenerate the Kaminia area does not concern solely the coast of the district which already presents acute elements of deindustrialisation . Inside the area, the deterioration is had mainly to the bad quality of the infrastructure and to the absence of common spaces reserved for the sporting and of leisure activities.

 

1.2 basic characteristics and demographic data

Unfortunately, the census carried out on a national scale in March 2001 has not produced yet concrete data on the population of the area. According to the census of 1991, the studied area has a population of 14,338 inhabitants (on a total population of 132,137 for the city, which accounts for therefore approximately 11 %). However, the real population is more important and is considered at approximately 20,000 inhabitants, on a total population considered at 150,000 inhabitants. This increase is due to the fact that a decade has passed since and that the urbanisation of the area continued.

Like some other large cities of the country, the studied area was the subject of research of the Thessaly University, which was completed three years ago and the results of which are exposed below.

As regards the population pyramid, the presence of a high percentage of old people is noted, while the percentage of young individuals is low and decreases constantly. In other words, there is an unhealthy relationship between the extreme layers of the population pyramid.

This phenomenon is allotted to the incapacity of the area to preserve the part of its most dynamic population from a economic point of view. The difficulties noted in the economic and social development of the area encouraged a good many of young people to be moved house towards other more developed areas, inside or outside Heraklion.

table 1.1

STRUCTURE DE LA RÈGION ÈTUDIÈE
	CHIFFRES ABSOLUS	POURCENTA
POPULATION RÈELLE	14.338	100%
POPULATION ACTIVE	5.220	36%
POP. ÈCONOMIQUEMENT ACTIVE	5.191	36%
CHÔMEURS	445	9%
ÈTRANG	79	1%

Source: Laboratory of space analysis and of subject map-making of the Thessaly University

 

diagram 1.1

 

Source: Laboratory of space analysis and of subject map-making of the Thessaly University

 

table 1.2

 

TRANCHES D'ÄGE ( POP. ACTIVE ) - ÈTUDIEE
	EN %	CHIFFRES ABSOLUS
0-14 ANS	0%	16
15-24	16%	846
25-34	30%	1585
35-44	25%	1325
45-54	17%	911
55-64	9%	484
65-ΑΝΩ	1%	55

Source: Laboratory of space analysis and of subject map-making of the Thessaly University

 

diagram 1.2

 

Source: Laboratory of space analysis and of subject map-making of the Thessaly University

1.3 analysis of the socio-economic situation, of the structures and of the environment

The training level of the inhabitants is, in general, rather low, certainly more than the average of the city (on the basis of the data provided by the social welfare). There is a very high rate of illiterates and of persons who even did not finish obligatory teaching.

 

NIVEAU D'EDUCTION - ZONE ETUDIEE ( SUR L'ENSEMBLE DE LA POP. ACTIVE )
	EN %	CHIFFRES ABSOLUS
UNIVERSITAI	9%	484
SUPÈRIEUR	5%	273
MOYEN	25%	1.292
MOYEN TECHNIQU	6%	289
OBLIGATOIRE	9%	484
ELEMENTAIRE	40%	2.113
NON ELEMENTAIRE	5%	285

TABLE 1.3.

Source: Laboratory of space analysis and of subject map-making of the Thessaly University

 

DIAGRAM 1.3.

 

Source: Laboratory of space analysis and of subject map-making of the Thessaly University

 

The manpower of the area accounts for 36.15% of the whole of the population, while official unemployment amounted, in 1999, to almost 10% of the working population, i.e. an appreciably more important rate than that of the remainder of the city (8 %). the economically active population structure is characterised by an important proportion of workmen, of commercial employees and of office workers (58% of the total). The other economic characteristics of the area are weak incomes with very weak, a population composed primarily of workmen, a high percentage of pensioners and, generally, of old people.

It is certainly revealing that real unemployment in the studied area is appreciably more important: according to data of the City of Heraklion, it approaches the 18% owing to the existence of a non listed and socially marginalised population, which carries out occasionally ungrateful, in general without Social Security cover and badly remunerated tasks. Also to point out that numerous individuals are not registered as unemployed persons because they devote themselves to other forms of occupation, such as, for example, the use of a small holding, etc.

Population housing conditions correspond to the general image of deterioration of the area. Certain data of the precaution services reveals that cheap and abandoned dwellings are used, temporarily or in a permanent way, by social groups economically disadvantaged, such as refugees of Greek origin, Gypsies and immigrants coming from the neighbouring countries, mainly from the Albanians. Also to note that Agia Triada's parish distributes financial aid, and even of food, to a large number of people (approximately 100) who are in the need.

With regard to the economic activity of the area, the appearance of numerous companies will be noted along the ways which border the area (62 Martyron, Kalokairinou, Archiepiskopou Makariou, etc.), but these are of especially a supralocal importance, while contributing to the employment of the inhabitants. However, a summary survey carried out by the study group to certain units employing more than ten people revealed that the majority of the employees do not live in the area in question.

Within the urban fabric, there are small units, mainly of commercial nature. Their distribution appears in the table below. The same table also reveals the existence of an increased percentage of unutilised and dilapidated buildings.

 

	Ag. Triada	Kaminia	TOTAL
Offices	35	22	57
Shops	152	313	465
Craft -enterprise shops	20	59	79
Workshops	3	39	42
3rd coles	5	9	14
Frontistiria	3	16	19
Municipal public -buildings	3	7	10
Warehouses	30	76	106
Unutilised buildings	92	177	269
Parks with cattle	2	6	8
Grounds	36	121	157
Dilapidated buildings	125	44	169
Another use	16	39	55

source : ÉÔÅ (technology and research Institute)

 

In addition to the fact that the studied area account a number of unemployed of an average training level with satisfactory and relatively young people, this data makes even more imperative the need to implement actions which will encourage the creation and the operation of small enterprises. Support and aid for the small enterprises anticipated by the priority 2 of the programme will provide an impetus to the development of the companies which already perform in the area, while, in parallel, the various actions of the measure 2.1. should contribute to the creation of new companies and/or to the displacement of certain companies of the adjacent areas. In addition to the individual benefits resulting from the measure 2.1., the existence of a considerable number of unutilised buildings constitutes an additional incentive to the installation of new companies in the area. All these processes will cause, in the long term, to revitalise and to develop the area which, one knows it, is currently in crisis.

There are small units, mainly of commercial nature. A considerable concentration of small trade on the Kaminia central place is noted, mainly on the northern side. It is advisable to mention in particular the picturesque area made up by the popular art workshops (mainly in the Vourdoubadon and Mastracha streets), which tend constantly to disappear and which generally close because the young generations do not want to perpetuate the tradition. Lastly, several craft enterprises, workshops, etc, were deployed along the coast. The majority of these units are characterised by an economic improvised administrative organisation and by an obsolete equipping (cf. cards on the economic activity, attached. Source: ITE).

In this context of deteriorated living conditions, the social problems which accumulate are important and of various nature, while existing social Security is rudimentary. On the one hand, there is a high percentage of old people, who concentrate mainly in Agia Triada's area, but the essential structures of social welfare are missing. On the other hand, the participation of women in the improvement of the family income is not favoured owing to the absence of complementary structures, such as, for example, creches, which would enable them to be engaged on new posts. Lastly, there are areas to the periphery of the Kaminia district which show obvious characteristics of environmental deterioration and of delay in socio-economic development. Among the exclusion indexes social in the area, one involves the cases of risk of provisional loss of housing, of maltraitance of women, of deviating behaviour, etc.

At the same time, the various economic and social problems which often involve problems of family nature are not managed responsible and systematic manner by an unspecified authority. The individuals economically disadvantaged do not have the possibility of benefiting from assistance, if it is not that of the Church or the allocation meagre of the precaution. In this situation, there are high risks that phenomena of social exclusion appear.

Young people do not find any discharge system or any hearth where they could share their concerns and devote themselves to healthy activities, be helped in the their employment search and, generally, in their professional reintegration. Lastly, it is appropriate to point out that the refugees and the foreigners who are concentrated in the area are regarded as a foreign body insofar as nothing were designed nor done to bring a solution to their problems.

The deteriorated industrial area which stretches along the coast takes on a special importance with regard to this proposal. In this area rather important sets of industrial buildings, of workshops and of warehouses are, the majority of which are inactive. The concentration of these sets had a decisive influence on environmental pollution of the area and on its marginalisation.

 

Analysis of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) of the area

The SWOT table below summarises the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats which characterise the intervention area proposed for the benefit of the URBAN initiative II for Heraklion.

 

	assets	weaknesses
Present situation	assets Central position in relation to the important activity poles, existing (downtown area, port) or in the process of creation (Stage all-Crete, Olympic Games 2004). Traditional buildings, inactive but workable property park, elements of historical inheritance. Workable coast. Existing museum. Existence of a pie of buildings belonging to the City.	weaknesses High unemployment rate. Problematic population pyramid. Low level of education and of training of manpower. Very reduced average size and delay of the companies. High proportion of foreigners and of Gypsies including the present social integration of the difficulties. Deteriorated property park. Insufficiency of urban and cultural equipment. The city is mainly turned towards the interior of the land and not towards the sea. The coast is deteriorated, not arranged and underexploited. Generally, insulation and particularly negative differentiation in relation to the remainder of Heraklion.
prospects	OPPORTUNITIES Organisation of eliminatory football and semi-final matches within the framework of the Olympic Games of 2004 at a place bordering (Stage all-Crete). Economic dynamism of the area in the broad sense (remainder of the city, department). Moreover: - a museum is under construction; - it is envisaged moving away from the area a football stage (Heraklion sporting Circle), which will release workable urban space; - it is envisaged that the Organisation of the subsidised housing moves wooden huts (illegal constructions on a usurped ground), which will release the area.	threats Perpetuation of the economic stagnation of the area, which will involve the creation of a completely marginalised area, since the remainder of the city shows a certain dynamism. Continuation of urban environmental pollution because of the construction of a coastal road way of rapid traffic, in the absence of compensatory interventions of urban and environmental planning.